Austin Killips may compete in the Paris Olympics. Thomas Moment for cycling, Austin Killips, a 27-year-old trans rider, won the women's first prize at the Tour of the Gila, New Mexico's premier road race.
It was the most significant result for Killips, a trans -identifying a biological male from Chicago who also won a medal in women's cyclocross at the U.S. National Championships and is now poised to compete for a spot in the women's Tour de France. and at the Paris Olympics next summer.
This year's Tour of the Gila was the first in the event's 36-year history to offer equal prize money, with a total prize pool of $35,350 (£28,145) in both men's and women's races. Killips, who only started cycling in 2019 before starting hormone replacement therapy, has earned nearly £8,000 finishing first in the women's overall standings, as well as an £800 bonus as 'Queen of the Mountains'.
«Austin is the cycling equivalent of Leah Thomas,» Inga Thompson, a three-time U.S. Olympian and five-time national road champion, told Telegraph Sport. place in the country in a similar men's category.
«It really highlights the issues that are happening to women in cycling,» Thompson said. in a sense, it's that women just quietly leave. They think, «Why bother if it's unfair?»Austin Killips crosses the line and secures the overall victory in the Women's Gila Tour. Credit: Gila Tour
The name Killips first gained wider attention in March, after former cyclocross champion Hannah Arensman cited it in a Supreme Court lawsuit explaining why she retired from the sport at 24. Arensman lost her podium spot to Killips in the national final in December, later accusing her transgender rival of repeatedly pushing her during the race, a claim Killips denied.
“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman said. “My sister and family wept as they watched a man finish in front of me who witnessed several physical interactions with him during the race. I sympathize with the young girls who are learning to compete, who no longer have a chance to become the new record holders and champions in cycling because the men want to compete in our division.”
Amid the Killips controversy, Thompson, who placed third in the women's Tour de France in 1986 and 1989, claimed that the model was becoming more common. “These women are young and there is a lot of bullying,” she said. “They are being canceled, they are being silenced, their work is being threatened. They are on the TERF [trans-exclusive radical feminist] list. If they say anything, they'll be gutted. And so instead of fighting it, they just leave.”
Killips is a candidate for the U.S. Olympic women's cycling team to be held in Paris next summer if the UCI, the global governing body, maintains its policy of allowing transgender riders to compete as long as they suppress their testosterone levels below 2.5 nanomoles per liter. over a two year period. The average testosterone level in women is between 0.5 and 2.4 nmol/l, while the British Journal of Sports Medicine has suggested that transgender women are stronger and maintain better heart and lung function than women, even 14 years after taking hormonal therapy.
«I expect Austin to win the Joe Martin Stage Race [in Arkansas] this month and then maybe go to the Women's Tour de France and the Paris Olympics,» Thompson said. “It's just common sense. After all the UCI races, national championships, why not? It's just that the Olympics aren't being talked about yet because it could cause a very strong backlash.”
With results improving rapidly, Killips is allowed to compete thanks to the UCI's liberal transgender policy, which stands firm. in conflict with World Athletics' approach to ban all post-pubertal males from the female category. This is also happening despite constant lobbying by female riders for a total ban: Last year, Marion Clinier, a three-time world champion from France, submitted a UCI poll showing 92 percent disagreeing with trans athletes who competed in the women's peloton.
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